1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a connector, a method of connecting a flexible circuit board to a control board by using the connector and a display apparatus including the connector. More particularly, the present invention relates to a connector capable of reducing defect rate, a method of connecting a flexible circuit board to a control board by using the connector and a display apparatus including the connector.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, a flat-type display apparatus is widely employed in various image display apparatuses such as a mobile communication terminal, a digital camera, a notebook computer, a monitor, etc. The reason behind the popularity of flat-typed display apparatuses includes advantageous characteristics such as light weight and thinness. There are different types of flat-typed display apparatuses, such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) apparatus, an organic light emitting display (OLED) apparatus, and a plasma display panel (PDP), among others. Of the different types of flat-type display apparatuses, the liquid crystal display apparatus has particularly desirable characteristics such as a relatively low power-consumption and a relatively small size.
Generally, the display apparatus includes a display panel, a gate driving circuit, a data driving circuit and a control printed circuit board. The display panel includes an array substrate and a counter substrate that can be assembled with the array substrate.
The array substrate includes a plurality of gate lines, a plurality of data lines and a plurality of switching elements. The counter substrate can be combined with the array substrate. The gate driving circuit includes a plurality of thin film transistors, and applies the gate signal to the gate lines. The data driving circuit applies the data signal to the data lines. The control printed circuit board is electrically connected to the data driving circuit board to control the gate driving circuit and the data driving circuit.
The control printed circuit board is electrically connected to the data driving circuit through a flexible circuit board. Upon initially establishing electrical connection between the flexible circuit board and the control printed circuit board, a static charge that was stored in the flexible circuit board causes electrical damage to the control printed circuit board. Further, when the flexible circuit board scratches a surface of the control printed circuit board during the electrical connection process, the surface of the control printed circuit board is physically damaged.
Particularly, the control printed circuit board is easily damaged by electrical and physical impacts when the flexible circuit board is arranged on the control printed circuit board such as to couple the flexible circuit board to the control printed circuit board.